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the title of the work is a pious fraud: that the design of the writer is to entice young men, by the promise of pastime and pleasure, into a course of valuable instruction in the seven sciences and in moral habits. He holds out the unsophisticated bait that "herein thou mayest easily find (as it were in pastime), without offence of nature, that thing, and in short space, which many great clerks without great pains and travail, and long continuance of time heretofore could never obtain nor get." The various precepts are made attractive to youth by being represented as the course that a young man must follow before he can hope to win a lady's favour. The hero of the poem, Graunde Amoure, relates how he met Fame: how she fired his fancy by a description of the incomparable La Belle Pucelle: how she directed him to the tower of Doctrine, where he was instructed in succession by seven mistresses, Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy: how in the chamber of Music he met his fair lady, wooed and won her love, but was parted from her and warned that he must conquer certain giants before she became his how he conquered those giants with the help of certain personifications whom he met on the way, and married La Belle Pucelle. When he had lived many years with his wife, Age walked into his house, bringing Policy and Avarice. Fame celebrates him after his death.

Warton has said that Hawes "has added new graces to Lydgate's manner;" and we may admit this if we are allowed to give our own interpretation to the words. But what are we to make of Southey's saying that the "Pastime of Pleasure," composed as he himself states in 1506, is "the best English poem of its century"? That such a judgment should have been given by any one that had read any of Hawes's predecessors, is a standing puzzle and bewilderment. As we plod conscientiously through the dreary pastime, we cannot help wondering whether Southey, who could not "afford either time or eyesight for correcting the proof-sheets of such a volume" as his British Poets, but who afforded the floating power of his name to the most execrably inaccurate reprint ever offered to the public, had ever been foolish enough to waste either time or eyesight on Hawes in any form whatever. Nothing short of a few pages of the poem can give the reader an adequate idea of its lustreless retailing of borrowed beauties, its mechanical piecing together of lines and rhymes with unmeaning and tautologous fag-ends and bits. Take his description of his matchless heroine, La Belle Pucelle, which he has laboured with especial

care

"In which dwelleth by great authority

La Belle Pucelle, which is so fair and bright;
To whom in beauty no peer I can see :

For like as Phoebus, above all stars in light,
When that he is in his sphere aright,
Doth exceed with his beamës clear,
So doth her beauty above other appear.

She is both good, aye wise, and virtuous,
And also descended of a noble line;
Rich, comely, right meek, and bounteous;
All manner virtues in her clearly shine;
No vice of her may right long domine:
And I, dame Fame, in every nation
Of her do make the same relation."

Take another specimen, in the old spelling, and see whether that flavour of antiquity makes the style more enjoyable. I give also the original uniform pointing as it appears in Southey's text, not venturing to make a new distribution of the adjuncts

"The roufe was painted, with golden beames
The windowes crystall, clearely clarified
The golden raies, and depured streames
Of radiant Phoebus, that was purified
Right in the Bull, that time so domified
Throughe windowes, was resplendishant
About the chamber, fair and radiaunt.'

There is a grammatical connection among these scattered members, and to discover it will be a fair exercise in punctuation. The "Pastime of Pleasure" is said to have been composed in 1506. It was first printed in 1517, and it was reprinted in 1554 and in 1555. It was included in Southey's selection from Early British Poets in 1831. Antony Wood lamented that, in his time, it was "thought but worthy of a ballad-monger's stall." We are less astonished at this than at the fact that Southey considered it worth reprinting in full in a selection that had no room for a single passage from Lydgate or Dunbar. Some of the critics of Southey's generation, in their laudable zeal to make Art the handmaid of Morality, seem to have been betrayed into criticising upon the principle that everything moral is poetical, no matter how tame, stupid, and lifeless.

IV. SCOTTISH SUCCESSORS.

The Scottish disciples of Chaucer are, on the whole, a more brilliant line of descendants than their English brethren. The seeds of mediæval poetry found a virgin soil in Scotland; and though the stems and flowers had something of the Scotch hardness, the crop was luxuriant enough.

I. JAMES I. (1394-1437).

This accomplished and unfortunate king-born in 1394, held as a captive in England from 1405 to 1424, and assassinated, after a firm and popular reign, in 1437-was by far the most successful imitator of Chaucer. Though he has no title to the rank of original poet, which some of his admirers claim for him, his "King's Quhair" (Quire or Book) is justly the most celebrated English poem of the fifteenth century. It is written in Troilus verse, and is commonly said, though the notion is probably erroneous, to have given that stanza its designation of rhymeroyal. In general structure, the poem belongs to the same family as Chaucer's graceful fantasies. The main incident is imitated from the Knight's Tale; and many turns of expression have been caught from the master. The poet supposes himself, after his restoration to his kingdom, to waken at midnight, when

1

"High in the heavenës figure circulere
The ruddy starrës twinkled as the fire,
And in Aquary Cinthia the clear

Rinsed her tresses like the golden wire."

He falls a-thinking, and, finding that he cannot sleep, reads 'Boece's Consolations.' But Boece is no sleep-compeller, and keeps his majesty awake with thoughts on the variableness of Fortune. He tosses about, and travels restlessly over his past

life

Among these thoughtës rolling to and fro,
Fell me to mind of my fortune and ure,3
In tender youth how she was first my foe,
And eft my friend, and how I gat recure
Of my distress, and all my adventure

I gan o'er-hale, that longer sleep ne rest
Ne might I not, so were my wittes wrest."

Suddenly the matins bell begins to sound, and seems to say to him "Tell on, man, what thee befel." He resolves at once to do so; gets up, takes a pen, makes the sign of the cross, invokes Calliope and her sisters in the name of Mary, and forthwith proceeds to tell the story of his captivity and courtship. He relates how his father prepared to send him to France, and how he was captured by an English ship and imprisoned in the tower. There he lay bewailing his sad fortune through the long days and nights. But suddenly joy came out of torment. From his prison window he could see into a fair garden, with flower-beds, hawthorn hedges, and leafy trees, filled with singing birds; and there one fresh May morning came to gather flowers a vision of beauty

1 See before, p. 20.

2 See Mr T. H. Ward's essay in English Poets,' and Mr Skeat's edition, 'Scottish Text Society.'

3 Use-hap.

4 Again.

66

that sent the blood of all his body to his heart-a lady with "beauty enough to make a world to dote," so fair that she might be taken for "god Cupido's own princess," or even very Nature the goddess," the painter of all the heavenly colours of the garden, come in person to survey her handiwork. For a moment he was astounded; but soon he began to feel that he had become for ever thrall to the fair apparition. He drank in all the particulars of her beauty; noted her attire, which was loose and simple, and feasted his eyes on a heart-shaped ruby hanging from a gold necklace, and burning like a wanton flame on her white throat; chided the nightingale for not singing to her; and after her departure, sat at his window in despair till night came on, leaning his head on the cold stone and bemoaning his destiny.

The conception of all this is well calculated to give scope for luxurious execution. It is a spacious and effective framework for studies of melancholy reflection, pangs of thwarted love, scenical richness, and womanly beauty. The execution, however, is not equal to the conception: it comes very far short of the softness, delicacy, and voluptuous richness of Chaucer. In what follows of the poem-for the above is comprised in two out of the six cantos -one is no less struck by the largeness and clearness of the plan, the vigorous judgment in bringing good situations naturally and fitly within the course of the poem. In Canto iii. he is transported to the Court of Venus, to plead for mercy from the Queen of Love, whose power he has long set at nought. In Canto iv. he is conducted to the Palace of Minerva, and receives much wise counsel. In Canto v. he goes in quest of Fortune, along the banks of a river, and through woods filled with all manner of wild beasts; finds her "howffing" on the ground, with her wheel before her, and obtains assurance of her favour. In the last Canto a turtle-dove presents him with a formal notification that his prayers have been heard, and that his desires will be speedily fulfilled. Readers familiar with Chaucer will see that the royal imitator has contrived to run the stream of his story past the very best opportunities for description, through the very heart of the country pictured in the "Court of Love," the "Parliament of Birds," and the "House of Fame." And it must be owned that, while the "King's Quhair" seems deficient in richness and delicacy of colouring when placed side by side with the work of the master, it reads remarkably well when removed from damaging comparison, and is infinitely the best composition produced in the school of Chaucer. There is real passion in it, and a real

1 This is commonly supposed to be a true narrative of King James's first vision of Lady Jane Beaufort. There is not the slightest reason to believe that it is anything but a romantic fancy, imitated from the appearance of Emily to Palamon and Arcite. As a real incident, it is as probable as that a turtle-dove brought him the blissful news of relief from his pain (Canto vi. 5-7).

sense of beauty, though the expression fails to strike through and rise above the embarrassing self-criticism that cramps so many Scotch attempts at eloquence and poetry. The proportions are good, but the surface is dry and hard.

In confirmation of this, the lover's approach and address to Venus (Canto iii. 25-28) may be compared with similar passages in the "Court of Love." The third of these stanzas is modelled on the invocation to the Virgin in the 'Canterbury Tales' of the Second Nun.

"With quaking heart astonate of that sight
Unnethës1wist I what that I should sain,
But at the lastë feebly as I might
With my handës on both my knees twain,
There I begouth 2 my cares to complain;

With ane humble and lamentable cheer
Thus salute I that goddess bright and clear.
'High Queen of Love! star of benevolence!
Piteous princess, and planet merciable!
Appeaser of malice and violence!

By virtue pure of your aspectes hable
Unto your grace let now been acceptable
My pure request, that can no further gone
To seeken help, but unto you alone.

As ye that been the succour and sweet well
Of remedy, of careful heartës cure
And in the huge weltering wavës fell,

Of loves ragë, blissful haven and sure:

O anchor and true of our good aventure,

Ye have your man with his good will conquest,
Mercy, therefore, and bring his heart to rest.

The beginning of Canto v., describing his journey in quest of Fortune, also comes into direct comparison with Chaucer ("Parliament of Birds," 180, 360, &c.)

"Where in a lusty plain took I my way,

Along a river, pleasant to behold,

Embroiden all with freshë flowres gay,

Where through the gravel, bright as any gold,
The crystal water ran so clear and cold,
That in mine earë made continually
A manner soun melled with harmony.

That full of little fishës by the brim,

Now here now there, with backes blue as lead,
Leapt and played, and in a rout gan swim
So prettily, and dressed them to spread
Their coral finnës as the ruby red,

That in the sunnëshine their scales bright
As gesserant aye glittered in my sight."

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